Senate kills bill that would have helped students in Wisconsin National Guard

Sgt. Wade Blaylock, a team leader with Company B, 1-128th Infantry, 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, conducts entry control point operations in southern Florida last September after the Wisconsin National Guard was called up to assist after Hurricane Irma hit the state.(Photo11: Spc. Jared Saathoff / Wisconsin National Guard)

Not long after Irma devastated Florida last year, 2,600 Wisconsin National Guardsmen got the call to drop everything to help hurricane victims.

More were called to help survivors of Hurricane Maria when that storm slammed into Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

The deployments, which all Wisconsin National Guardsmen know can happen at a moment's notice, meant leaving behind jobs, families and classes. State and federal rules protect Guard members from losing their jobs or school fees in most cases.

But some of the Wisconsin service members who were college students fell into a gray area because the open-ended mobilizations for hurricane relief didn't meet the 30-day minimum for deployments and some attended private schools that do not fall under state rules that require tuition refunds for deploying troops among other measures.

The timing couldn't have been worse since the Wisconsin soldiers were deployed just as college classes were starting for the fall semester. Roughly 400 of the troops who mobilized for hurricane relief were students.

Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry, 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team assisted Pembroke Pines Police Department with distribution health and wellness checks for people in need as a result of Hurricane Irma.(Photo11: Spc. Jared Saathoff / Wisconsin National Guard)

So Wisconsin lawmakers created legislation that would require all higher education institutions, trade and professional schools in the state to refund tuition to deploying service members or allow them to re-enroll at no additional cost in the next available class no matter how long they're gone.

While the bill passed in the Assembly in January, it appears the measure is dead because the Senate did not schedule a vote on it before the end of the session, set for Tuesday.

The rules were put in place after the invasion of Iraq 15 years ago when some National Guard members got only 48 hours' notice to deploy overseas for as long as a year. But with hurricane relief, service members were told the mobilization was open-ended because officials didn't know how long troops would be needed.

Of the 400 students deploying for hurricane relief, 167 were enrolled in state universities, 123 in private colleges and apprenticeship programs and the rest were in technical colleges and online programs.

Every private and public university in the state was affected by the deployment since an entire brigade combat team was mobilized. Some Guard members served for only a couple of days while others were gone for weeks.

Several soldiers in 2nd Lt. Andrew Omernik's platoon were affected by the deployment orders, including one of his squad leaders who was enrolled in a class offered only during the fall semester.

"Some of our soldiers were not able to come on the deployment with us due to the fact that if they missed over two weeks of a course, they would have had to take another year of college because that course was only offered in the fall," said Omernik.

Omernik is a member of Arcadia-based Charlie Co., 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry Brigade. His unit spent a couple of weeks in Florida freeing up civilian police in Miami by handling traffic control points and performing other tasks.

Roughly 15% to 20% of students who deployed for hurricane relief last fall ran into problems. Most students who had difficulty with tuition or returning to classes asked their immediate commanders to contact their schools, said Maj. Bartholomew Droessler, the Wisconsin National Guard's education service officer. About a half dozen other disputes came to Droessler's office, requiring him to intervene.

"We had to contact the schools and eventually they all voluntarily did the right thing," said Droessler. "But when you're a student, that's a big burden over your head. That's a big bill."

Droessler doesn't believe any of the schools acted maliciously but noted some school officials didn't know the rules or requested copies of soldiers' orders.

"The biggest benefit of the legislation is it consolidates rules and all soldiers will be treated the same with the same level of protection, which is easier to explain and is inherently more fair," Droessler said.

Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), vice chairman of the Committee of Universities and Technical Colleges, had a problem with the bill regarding voluntary deployments — service members who volunteer for duty or training, said his chief of staff, Mike Mikalsen. When military officials were asked for an estimate of how many National Guard members would be likely to miss school for voluntary deployments, they didn't have an answer.

"The Department of Military Affairs, which surprised us, did not have those numbers ready. Because it's reasonable to ask that question," said Mikalsen, noting that Nass served three decades in the Wisconsin Air National Guard.

"He's always been very supportive of veterans, but he does think there could be some real impact on the UW System and we should know that upfront. There are times that are involuntary and everyone is fine with covering that," Mikalsen said.

Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg), a co-author of the bill, will reintroduce the measure when the next session convenes in 2019, said Ethan Hollenberger, Stroebel's director of communications.